Blood Pressure measurements - An evaluation of three digital devices

This study evaluated blood pressure (BP) measurements utilising three automatic blood pressure measuring devices. BPs of 36 healthy subjects taken with the AND Digital Blood Pressure Meter UA-731, auto-inflating, the AND Digital Blood Pressure Meter UA-701, manual inflating, and the AND Digital Blood Pressure Meter Memory + Printer UA-751, auto-inflating, were compared with measurements taken with the standard mercury sphygmomanometer. Devices UA-731 and UA-701 gave significantly higher systolic BP measurements than the manual method, while measurements taken with the UA-751 did not differ significantly from the manual method. Diastolic measurements using the electronic devices were lower than those determined using the manual method. Only measurements taken by device UA-751 were statistically significantly lower. This study showed that order effect in multiple determinations of BP has to be considered to interpret the data. Using electronic devices for home determination of BP can be very useful, if the patient is trained according to standardised procedures. The same argument holds for epidemiological surveys. A very helpful attribute for epidemiological surveys is that the operator does not have to be a medically trained person, which keeps costs down.